More on Star Wars on DVD

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But sadly it isn't the Holiday Special

By Jeremy Conrad

As part of his "Star Wars Spectacular" at the San Diego Comic Con, Lucasfilm's fandom guru and ultimate collector Steve Sansweet took the time to announce a couple new Star Wars DVDs that will be hitting stores later this year and next spring.

First up, the short-lived animated series Ewoks and Droids will arrive this December from 20th Century Fox Home Video. They only ran a few episodes, so the DVDs will naturally collect the entire series run for both shows.

Also in December, the two live-action Ewok movies, The Ewok Adventure and The Battle for Endor will arrive on DVD. No other details on the discs were revealed, and it unfortunately looks like we won't be seeing the Holiday Special on DVD unless a snowball finds some way to survive in hell.

Also, the very successful Clone Wars animated series will hit DVD around Easter 2005. The first twenty episodes (Seasons 1 and 2) will arrive on disc around the same time Season 3 debuts on the Cartoon Network in the spring. No details were revealed, but since every episode of the series features a commentary track on the official site's Hyperspace section, there is a very good chance those commentaries will arrive on the DVD.

Fans were also treated to a few exclusives from the upcoming Star Wars Trilogy DVD set. Lucasfilm's Jim Ward screened a couple of clips from the two-and-a-half hour documentary included on disc four. One included screen test footage that some hardcore fans have seen before, and another featured Irvin Kershner revealing a secret that only the hardest of the hardcore Star Wars fans knew.

When they were filming the "No, I am your father" scene in The Empire Strikes Back, David Prowse actually said "No, Obi-Wan killed your father" to Hamill. The only people who knew the truth were Lucas, Kershner, Hamill, and eventually James Earl Jones (among a few select others). Jones says in an interview he thought Vader was lying when he first read the line.

If you can't wait to see the documentary, a ninety-minute version will air on cable in September.

They also screened the "Return of Darth Vader" featurette included on the disc, which features scenes of Hayden Christensen suiting up as Vader and stepping on the set for the first time. Members of the Official Star Wars Fan Club Hyperspace will remember this scene being described on the official site as a moment when everyone wanted to be on the set to see Vader captured by the digital cameras for the first time. You see a small clip of that moment in the featurette.

Also screened was the "Making of the Episode III videogame" featurette that includes a couple quick glances at the game as well as footage of Hayden doing some saber duels with the animators so they could accurately recreate the saber moves in the game.

Finally, Ward discussed how Lowry Digital Images restored the trilogy. They found and removed more than ten million pieces of dirt from the three films. The result is a Star Wars trilogy that looks crisper and clearer than even the original theatrical prints. Those who have seen the transfers were blown away.

So Star Wars fans have a lot to look forward to. On September 21st the Holy Trilogy hits DVD, in December Droids, Ewoks, and the Ewok movies arrive, in the Spring you can get the first two seasons of Clone Wars, and then on May 19th Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith completes the circle and fills in the last puzzle piece of the saga. My wallet is already crying.